All the Rage: Customer Service Rage

At some point or another, haven’t you ever felt like taking a hammer and bashing the computer of a customer service representative?

That’s what one harmless-looking 78-year-old woman did a while back after a beyond-frustrating encounter with Comcast. Her story and other tales of aggravating customer service run-ins were featured in yesterday’s “Sunday Morning.” In addition to describing several of the more colorful customer service confrontations, there are plenty of frustrating factoids, such as:

*60% of people who call to complain get nothing

*70% of people who had problems with a product or service say they experienced rage

So, are companies finally figuring out that bad customer service is bad for business? It doesn’t really look like this is the case. But there are signs consumers sure are sick of the aggravating combo of higher prices and worse customer service: The third quarter of 2010 marked the first time ever that pay TV subscriptions decreased, with roughly 500,000 customers cutting the cable, including 275,000 fewer customers at Comcast alone.